Laiback

Laiback
Laiback (Slovene post-punk group) must be for me the most compelling of all bands. The imagery is powerful and confronting. They are masters of the stage, of performance and dance. They truly entertain me but at the same time their conflicting messages start to play havoc with my mind. The ‘strategies to take the ruling ideology more seriously literally than it took itself’ is a hard core message. In Zizek Skavoj ‘They moved the underground’ he challenges us and our beliefs and the message is not just to accept the existing order, but to see the underbelly of society.
‘Our mission is to make evil lose its nerve’ is one of Laiback’s messages, however, it conflicts violently with their statement that they are not political. Laibach represents the music wing of the NSK art collective which was founded in 1984 and as performers they appear very successful.
It is difficult to comment on the politics. One would need to live through the wars and have firsthand knowledge to comprehend the legacies that still remain. The Yugoslav Wars (1991-1995) are described as Europe’s deadliest conflicts since WW 11; they are infamous for war crimes which includes ethnic cleansing. I cannot imagine how Laiback’s use and manipulation of symbolic images of oppressive regimes would affect people who have lived through these histories. I cannot comment.
Carmel Wellburn